


cry your melancholy thoughts

by switchblade



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: PTSD attacks, joels a good dad he tries hard, mentions of David
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 14:05:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15708738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/switchblade/pseuds/switchblade
Summary: The brain functions on replay, revisiting moments after moments of past events to avoid in the future. When you're 16 years old and have lived through more than you probably should have been able to, there's more than enough moments for it to cycle through.PTSD is a nightmare both literally and metaphorically, and Ellie knows it all too well.





	cry your melancholy thoughts

**Author's Note:**

> this hasn't been proofread lmao. based off a prompt someone sent on tumblr

It’s 2:43 in the morning and Joel wakes to the sound of something smashing in the kitchen downstairs.

With a jolt he’s awake in half a second, hand immediately reaching for and grabbing the pistol kept next to him on the bedside drawer. His covers were discarded and he quickly walked out of his room, worry overwhelming him. He began to make his way to the steps leading to the lower floor, but before he went far enough he glanced back at the door adjacent to his own.

He thought to himself and weighed his options for only a moment; “ _Ellie’s still asleep, right?_ ” He shook his head clear and quickly walked to the door, his heart stopped for a moment when he saw it was left ajar slightly. Opening it the rest of the way, his eyes grew wide. She wasn’t in her bed. Her covers were on the floor and her pillows were tossed haphazardly into a corner of the room, but there was no sign of her.

He left the door open and quickly made his way back to the stairs. 

He tried his hardest to stay quiet, not to scare off whoever was there, but the house is old. The wood is rotting, and while they’ve been repairing homes for months now, age and fresh termites are a hard battle to fight against. So when Joel’s boot creates a loud creak, he decides “ _Fuck it_ ”. He races down the rest of the steps and turns to face into the kitchen, his gun held in both hands.

It’s dark in the house, and with his momentarily blinded eyes he can see a figure standing next to the wooden table to the left, unmoving. They’re just standing there, and they’ve made no effort to escape - hell, even acknowledge that he’s there. Joel squints, unsure for a moment and readjusts his grin on his pistol, but another moment later his eyes adjust.

He recognizes the hair and the face it frames, and he sees Ellie standing there, eyes unblinking and her right hand resting on the table top. He looks down, and sees a ceramic bowl in pieces on the ground, her left hand still positioned to carry it staying stiff by her side. He puts his gun on a step of the stairs, and whispers in a calm voice, “Ellie?”

The moment he speaks, her head snaps up. Her eyes are wide and she’s _shaking_. Her breathing becomes labored as she begins to hyperventilate, her hands turning stiff in claw-like positions, all the while still shaking furiously with the rest of her. She lets out a tearless sob before Joel quickly walks over.

He’s seen this before.

It never so much happened when they were traveling, the only first real instance occurred a few days after arriving at Tommy’s. Everything had time to settle then, her mind had enough peace and free time to digest the past months. Their fourth night there, Joel had woken to the sound of blood curdling screams, and strings of profanities and insults. He had raced to Ellie’s room and found her awake on her bed, sobbing and tearing at one of her pillows. He’d rushed over to console her, sitting down by her bed and taking her arms in his hands. She had fought him, pulling her arms back until he began to say, “It’s ok! We’re home, it’s alright! It’s me, you’re ok!”.

She had let her arms go limp, but instead of screaming or fighting she’d begun to hyperventilate. She had stared at him, and her chest heaved as she struggled for air, her body shaking. Joel held her arms in his hands and spoke to her, reminding her how to breathe, everything’s fine, you’re safe, no one’s going to hurt you, I promise, everything’s ok.

She had regained her breathing a few minutes later, and she fell forward, lying limply against his chest. She’d let herself cry, and she’d let Joel brush the stray tear covered strands of hair away from her face. She had sobbed into his chest, she sobbed about how “I can still feel them, I can still feel _him_ , I can feel hands grabbing my clothes, I can still see guns pointed at me, I can still taste spores, and I can still feel blood _everywhere_.”

Joel held her against him as she cried, he listened to every word and felt his heart shatter with every syllable. He stroked her back and tried his best to soothe her for the next hour as she continued to cry, until finally she fell silent. As he brought her away from him he had quickly realized she’d cried herself to exhaustion, and had fallen asleep.

He had placed her back down on her bed and tucked her in, determind to have a talk about it with her the next morning, no matter how stubborn she may be.

It happened again the next night. Then the one after that, and then the one after that one. It went on for about a week before taking a break for a day or two, then started back up again. She’d wake in screams and hold Joel close until the flashbacks passed, night after night. It went on for months their first year at Tommy’s - coming in highs and lows of severity - and when winter had come around it escalated.

Her night terrors were always the worst, but alongside them came the flashbacks during the day. The first time snow had fallen heavily on the ground, Ellie had opened the front door only to freeze in her tracks - the cycle starting over again. Needless to say, their first year of finally living in peace was a constant hell.

In the time that followed it had gotten progressively better. Her attacks mainly occurred during the day, which finally gave both her and Joel some well deserved sleep. Eventually, it had slowed down from having an attack every few days, to one or two a month. By the end of their second year, it had almost vanished. 

At least that’s what Joel had thought. 

Seeing Ellie as she was right now gave him a clear indication that this had been more frequent than she had told him. 

As he approached her, she began to grasp at the table beside her, her eyes fixated on the ground as she continued to gasp. “Ellie,” Joel said quietly, “sweetheart it’s me. It’s ok.” He stood in front of her and gently took her arm off of the table, “You’re in the kitchen, at Tommy’s. No one here’s going to hurt you, you are perfectly safe.”

She jerked back, pulling her arm away from him and holding it to her chest. She froze in place again before looking up at him. It was at this point when they made eye contact, that something in her finally broke. She grabbed a hold of his shirt and pulled herself forward, wrapping her arms around around his stomach and crying loudly into his chest.

Joel was ready, he cupped the back of her head with one hand and hugged her with the other. She was sobbing, talking through bubbles of spit, snot, and his shirt about how, “I can’t get him out of my head,” and “All I see when I close my eyes is Riley,”.

Joel stayed quiet while she talked, he patted the back of her head and held her tight. They stood there together as her crying continued, and he didn’t bother to ask her how long these attacks had been occuring again; he already knew. 

Eventually, Ellie sat down in a chair at the table, resting her head on Joel’s shoulder as she let him hold her wrists and speak. He spoke about the things she’s managed to bring happiness to at Tommy’s, to the people in the town, to _him_. He spoke about how she was more than what past her brain decided to remind her of; she was deserving of healing. Healing from the doings of a horrible man, from near death, from heartbreak. 

As he spoke, he felt no response from her. When he finished speaking he leaned back; she was fast asleep. With a sad smile he gently got up, leaned forward, and picked up the 16 year old in his arms. Walking back up the stairs as quietly as he could, he walked into her room and placed her onto her bed, taking one of the covers she’d thrown in fury and gently placing it over top of her. Brushing away the tear dried hair stuck on her face, he whispered, “Goodnight, babygirl.”

The broken bowl could wait until morning.


End file.
